# The Big Combo
**The Big Combo** is a 1955 American film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis, in which police lieutenant Leonard Diamond pursues the sadistic crime boss Mr. Brown while falling under the influence of Brown's mistress, Susan Lowell. Released by Allied Artists on 13 February 1955, it was photographed by John Alton, whose extreme low-key lighting (lighting that keeps most of the frame dark, with sparse highlights) has made the film one of the most frequently cited examples of noir visual style.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/159643/the-big-combo)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 13 February 1955, distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corp.; working title *The Hoodlum*[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) |
| Director and writer | Joseph H. Lewis; original screenplay by Philip Yordan[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) |
| Principal cast | Cornel Wilde (Lt. Leonard Diamond), Richard Conte (Mr. Brown), Jean Wallace (Susan Lowell), Brian Donlevy (Joe McClure), Lee Van Cleef (Fante), Earl Holliman (Mingo)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) |
| Cinematography and music | John Alton, director of photography; score by David Raksin[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) |
| Production | Shot 26 August to 18 September 1954 at Kling Studios, with additional sequences in late November 1954; black and white, 1.85:1, RCA Sound System[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) |
| Budget and schedule | Producer Sidney Harmon: "We made it in 26 days for a third of what it would cost a major outfit"[3](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/the-big-combo-1955/) |
| Later standing | 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (15 reviews); a 70th-anniversary 4K restoration premiered at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April 2025[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/big_combo) • [5](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/the-big-combo-4k/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens with Susan Lowell, the girlfriend of organized crime boss Mr. Brown, fleeing through the dark corridors of a boxing stadium pursued by Brown's henchmen Fante and Mingo. She collapses from an overdose of sleeping pills, and police lieutenant Leonard Diamond, who is in love with her, takes up her case. Diamond has already been reprimanded by his superior, Captain Jeff Peterson, for spending too much money on his unsuccessful pursuit of Brown.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
The investigation turns on the name "Alicia," which Brown has been writing on his apartment windows. Diamond traces it to Alicia Brown, the gangster's wife, who disappeared years earlier during an ocean voyage with Grazzi, the former leader of the criminal organization Brown now runs. Brown's response is violence: his men kidnap Diamond and torture him by inserting a hearing aid into his ear and holding the amplifier next to a blaring radio, then dump him to make him look drunk. The torture scene drew particular comment from 1955 reviewers; the *Daily Variety* critic called it "particularly brutal."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
The film ends at a fog-bound airfield, where Diamond and Susan stand together in a final shot that has become one of the most reproduced images in film noir: two figures silhouetted against a dazzling white haze.[6](https://www.litteraturogmedieleksikon.no/gallery/filmlys.pdf)
## Production
The picture was a co-production of Theodora Productions, Inc., the company owned by star [Cornel Wilde](https://www.edgepedia.org/cornel-wilde) and his wife Jean Wallace, and Security Pictures, Inc., headed by screenwriter Philip Yordan and producer Sidney Harmon. It was the first production of Theodora Productions.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
**Casting changes.** According to a 31 August 1954 *Daily Variety* item, [Jack Palance](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-palance) was originally cast as Mr. Brown but was replaced by [Richard Conte](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-conte) after Palance insisted that his then wife, Virginia Baker, be cast in the film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO) A June 1954 *Hollywood Reporter* item reported that the picture would be made in Eastman color, but it was photographed in black and white.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
The production was fast and cheap. Harmon told the *Los Angeles Times* in 1955 that the film was made in 26 days for a third of what a major studio would have spent.[3](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/the-big-combo-1955/) Music scoring was done at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in December 1954.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
## Style and cinematography
John Alton's photography is the element for which the film is most often remembered. Working on studio sets, Alton used single-source, hard-edge lighting to carve figures out of darkness rather than illuminate them against it, treating darkness as substance rather than absence; faces register as partial facts, half-consumed by shadow.[7](https://classicnoir.com/films/big-combo) The film historian Patrick Keating notes that Alton's photography in the opening and closing scenes "characterizes for many what defines film noir," with the opening chase staged through pools of light and dark that entrap the fleeing woman in the frame.[8](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/Cinematography-by%20Patrick%20Keating.pdf) Alton had published his own manual, *Painting with Light*, in 1949, and was known for a visual signature of crisp shadows and sculpted beams of light.[9](https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.8501371)
**Sound design.** Lewis's use of sound drew critical attention alongside the photography. He used music, both jazz and classical, to disorient and oppress his protagonists, and in one sequence used complete silence: when McClure's hearing aid is removed, the viewer experiences his death, with guns blazing, from his deaf and helpless perspective.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/159643/the-big-combo) The score by David Raksin is jazz-derived, with piano solos by Jacob Gimbel.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
The Encyclopedia of Film Noir credits the combination of Alton's low-key cinematography, Raksin's jazz score, Yordan's deliberately stylized dialogue, and Lewis's direction, which pushed both the conventions of the 1950s crime film and the restrictions of the Production Code, with making the film one of the most memorable noirs of the 1950s.[10](https://doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf) Unlike Lewis's earlier *Gun Crazy* (1950), which used location shooting, *The Big Combo* allows virtually no outside reality to intrude; after documentary city footage behind the credits, the film becomes a closed, self-contained universe with little sunlight or brightness.[10](https://doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf)
## Reception and reputation
In 1955 the film was treated as a routine B-movie crime thriller. Variety wrote that it was "done with grim melodramatics that are hard-hitting despite a rambling, not-too-credible plot," and flagged one torture scene that "will shock the sensibilities." The New York Times called it "a shrill, clumsy and rather old-fashioned crime melodrama with all hands pulling in opposite directions."[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/159643/the-big-combo)
Reputation has since reversed. The film is much more highly regarded today than in 1955, and Lewis himself considered it one of his better film noirs, though not above his personal favorite, *Gun Crazy*.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/159643/the-big-combo) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 93% Tomatometer from 15 reviews and a 79% audience score.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/big_combo) [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker)'s Michael Sragow described it in 2013 as a "rabidly amusing B movie" and noted Lewis's cheap chiaroscuro paying off when Wallace uses a spotlight to trace Conte's zigzag flight through a dark airport.[11](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-big-combo) Some critics have called it the best [B movie](https://www.edgepedia.org/b-movie) of all time.[12](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/13075/1/184.pdf)
## Restoration and home video
The film circulated for years in public-domain prints of variable quality before receiving a major restoration.[7](https://classicnoir.com/films/big-combo) Ignite Films and Eagle Rock Pictures then produced a 70th-anniversary 4K restoration, working from a 35mm fine grain answer print and a 35mm optical sound negative; the picture was restored in 4K by The Grainery, with audio sourced from the UCLA restoration and color grading by Gosia Grzyb under the supervision of Scott MacQueen.[13](https://www.ignite-films.com/products/the-big-combo) The restoration premiered at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April 2025, and the 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray edition, which includes Robert Florey's 1949 noir *The Crooked Way* as a bonus film, was released on 20 March 2026.[5](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/the-big-combo-4k/)
## References
1. [The Big Combo (1955), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51442-THE-BIGCOMBO)
2. [The Big Combo, Turner Classic Movies article](https://www.tcm.com/articles/159643/the-big-combo)
3. [The Big Combo (1955) film notes, Toronto Film Society](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/the-big-combo-1955/)
4. [The Big Combo, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/big_combo)
5. [The Big Combo 4K review by Glenn Erickson, Trailers From Hell (CineSavant)](https://trailersfromhell.com/cinesavant/the-big-combo-4k/)
6. [Filmlys: John Alton's lighting aesthetic, Litteratur og Medieleksikon](https://www.litteraturogmedieleksikon.no/gallery/filmlys.pdf)
7. [Big Combo (1955), Classic Noir](https://classicnoir.com/films/big-combo)
8. [Cinematography by Patrick Keating (chapter on John Alton)](https://lib.zu.edu.pk/ebookdata/Media%20Sciences/Film/Cinematography-by%20Patrick%20Keating.pdf)
9. [Painting With Light by John Alton, JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.8501371)
10. [The Big Combo entry, Encyclopedia of Film Noir (Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell)](https://doctormacro.com/Movie%20Books/PDF%20Files/Encyclopedia%20of%20Film%20Noir%20%28Geoff%20Mayer%2C%20Brian%20McDonnell%29.pdf)
11. [The Big Combo, by Michael Sragow, The New Yorker (2013)](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-big-combo)
12. [Houses of Noir (book chapter on Allied Artists noirs)](https://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/13075/1/184.pdf)
13. [The Big Combo 70th Anniversary 4K Restoration, Ignite Films](https://www.ignite-films.com/products/the-big-combo)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Film noir and neo-noir films › Released 1940 to 1975*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license